Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/57

Rh "I don't want to kill him unless I have to. At this age I had little more sense than he has today. If I had something by which I could teach him what time has taught me—that in evil lies only frustration and defeat and that in the things my ancestors despised as lily-livered goodness lie true wisdom; if there were such a machine, then my problem would be solved."

"Let me try. I have seen something that looked like this before." Nydia twirled a graduated dial upon the enigmatic machine. Still within the focus of the rays, centered in the cross-hairs of the machine, lay the quivering mass of strangely alive protoplasm which had shortly before been a horse. Nydia again pressed the great lever at the side of the screen, and again the vast machine sang its song of magical power. As they watched, the mass of jelly quivered more and more violently, and from it a slow movement arose, a mist formed at the center of the focus, and abruptly within the mist movement and matter became one—life was! Something living was being created before their eyes from that strange jelly! What was it going to be? Their eyes strained at the quivering picture, and the image grew stronger and stronger as the mist quivered into solidity.

They stood aghast, for out of that mass of gray quivering nothing, out of the focus of life generating rays was growing—a tiny woman. Like Minerva from Jove's forehead, she was fully formed, adult in appearance and lovely as the paintings of the ancient goddesses that survive on less exposed walls, lovely as are the great statues of the Elder race; mystically lovely, quivering upright on two symmetrical limbs, her eyes lifted to the bright sky in wonder at the miracle of life so suddenly given her! She lifted her hands to the sky, to the tree, to the bright sun so far above. From her lips came a coo of ecstacy, and from her back came a fluttering, growing, vibrant wonder of color—wings! Mephisto swore.

"By the gods, so that was where the little people came from! A creation of the mystic science of old—a synthetic form of life—this machine, by some means, takes a gross form of life and from it creates more perfectly developed forms of life—and I had thought it a weapon. Yes, those ancients did create wonders from life about them, and we are watching one of those wonders."

S THEY watched, the infant, winged being; who was yet as strangely adult and complete as is a new hatched dragonfly, vibrated her bright, rainbow wings, and with a strange cry of infinite delight in movement, flew up, and out of the focus of the rays!

"Perhaps that is the answer we are looking for. Oh, Lord of Darkness, of the family whom I know once ruled the caverns far and wide, mayhap with this machine we can do what so many have tried and failed. Maybe we can take those gross creatures above and change them into something more valuable, less threatening; something that is not dead, but greatly more alive! Methinks the souls of those who have gone on, the great who have lived her in Eg Notha, have guided us to this machine that it may answer our needs with its work. Let us try some more of the markings on its dial, there is still some more 'horse' left."

They turned back to the machine, but even as they had talked together, another and another tiny creature had formed within the focus of the rays upon the gray jelly. Swiftly they grew; one male, one female and swiftly their wings spread and dried in the bright sun, and then lifted them up and away into the sunlight.

"It seems sacrilege to touch the dial," Nydia said, stretching out one trembling hand to the mysterious, titanic majesty of the face of the machine that was the product of a mind who had mastered the source, the meaning and creation of life itself.

"There are markings on that dial that my old eyes can't see. But they are raised markings—see if your clever fingers can make out what they are."

Nydia ran her fingers, those sensitive tools of her mind that had served her as eyes so often, over the broad face of the dial.

"Yes, yes, at each long dial indentation, at each of these rulings, there is a tiny figure drawn, but I cannot see clearly with just my fingers. Get a light, or, better, get one of those mirrors of the impervious metal and reflect some of the light from this screen upon the dial. Then our minds may see the marks if our eyes cannot."